Comments

Edgiest TAS ever made lol. A TAS of the Shadow the Hedgehog game would be edgier, but it's too dangerous, because I'll get too many cuts.
This is a TAS of Sonic Battle on GBA. A spinoff game from the Sonic the Hedgehog games, and one of my childhood games for the system, so I know this game pretty well. The TAS was fun and frustrating to make, but it was fun... and really hard to optimize. Thankfully it's much better than my rough TAS of fight 1.
There's a Story Mode, Battle Mode and Challenge Mode. Battle Mode is arbitrary for this site, and Story Mode would be even more boring and really long and hard as balls to do.
I chose challenge mode, based on Kumquat's old testrun with Emerl that uses dirty SRAM.

My character choice was Shadow. It was a hard choice from using Emerl (no because of required SRAM), and Knuckles which gets the 1st KO faster (with his Deep Impact move), but right after that he's other moves make him much slower than Shadow.
Shadow has 2 really OP special moves that make him faster than any other character (aside from his excellent movement on the ground and in the air.)
Chaos Magic: A Chaos Control move that stuns foes and hits them in mid-air, making them unable to attack me. This is used with his heavy attack to make a deadly combo. Makes 20 damage each shot.
Chaos Burst: A very deadly move that creates a forcefield that when done on a platform, kills the lower Z positioned enemy in 5 hits. Fastest killing SP move in the game without counting Emerl.
Chaos Nightmare: A high dealing heavy attack that has a wide damage range and a great aim attack to finish off foes.
Mixing these moves consistently makes a really polished and consistent killing spree.

AI Manipulation Basics

Ok... here there are some things to consider regarding killing foes, and spawning them in the desired positions and more synchronized blocking patterns.
For example, I do a special move, and then a heavy attack to kill 2 foes. The spawn in some position and different block pattern.
Doing the heavy attack on a frame late, in a different position will change all that. So doing a let's say 3 frame slower finishing move, with few pixels off will change all that.
So, if a KO seems slower or weird looking, you'll know why. Now for the real deal, what I do on the 5 stages.

Stage by stage comments

Stage 1: Knuckles & Tails (aka. he didn't chuckle that one)

This is where all of the discoveries regarding AI manipulation and KO pacing come from.
I hit Knuckles first with my dash attack, to make Tails go to my position so I can hit him with my air attack and join both together to start my killing spree with Chaos Magic, Using Chaos Burst first makes the entire fight slower, as seen in my original TAS of the first stage.
2nd set of KOs is much simpler, I just do my forcefield move on a specific frame and position so I can hit both foes more consistently.
3rd set was much more complicated. First, I hit Knux few frames late so when Tails gets hit, he moves towards me in midair so I can hit him again. After few move moves I jump and do an air attack, so I can kill them without hitting them against the wall, which is slower because Tails does an aim attack that hits me while he's very high, so I slowdown a bit to finish them with a heavy attack so they can spawn simultaneously and with the same blocking patterns for each.
4th set. Knuckles doesn't get knocked upwards (but the game still detects a hit) so he can move towards me so I can still hit both of them. I finish with a Heavy attack and do an aim attack few frames late for the final KOs to be faster.
Final set. Do a Chaos Burst on both and finish it of with a Chaos Magic thanks to the AI manipulation from the KOs before.

Stage 2: Sonic (aka. ultimatum life forum)

1 on 1 fight, meaning it's the slowest in the entire run. Sonic moves really well, but can't handle himself against me, the ultimate life form! Seriously though, he was easy to manipulate. Chaos Magic in midair works better against him due to him not having great movement in the air.
Not much to say here other than the spawn in the platform, so I can do Chaos Burst him in 4 hits instead of 5.
He also likes to do stuff with his fists too instead of his special moves, which are less frequent and slow me down quite a bit, so I don't block him since he'll punch me instead.

Stage 3: Rouge & Gamma (aka. screw that bat girl)

Hardest fight to do, without a doubt. The absolute thing that made the fight slower was Rouge. Everytime she spawns, she stays flying in midair, and only a select few special moves that are very slow avoid this. When you hit her, she stays flying, and that makes AI manipulation and special move positions to be extremely tricky.
1st I go straight to Gamma because he's really slow, and block his punch to save my special bar for later. I do a Chaos Burst, killing them together.
2nd set was complex. Block Gamma's punch and strategically do a Chaos Magic move, followed by an air attack, followed by another Chaos Magic and a heavy attack to finish it off. Slowest set of the TAS cuz of Rouge's slow antics.
3rd set. Blocking Gamma's punch forces him to fall of the platform, then I hit Rouge with 2 attacks and then I jump to move Gamma few pixels on the left so he doesn't land in the platform and then I do a Chaos Burst. Yeah, Rouge such a troll.
4th set... You'll see that every time Gamma dies, he explodes and I block that. Thanks to all those blocks, I get my super meter charged so I can do a Chaos Magic and 1HKO both characters!
Final set is more like the Knux stage plus the Rouge delay.

Stage 4: Amy, Cream & Chaos (aka. the hammer)

This is were it gets more interesting.
Just like the 1st Knux fight, I dash attack the slowest character first, which is Chaos. After some movement changes, I do Chaos Magic to all 3 characters, followed by a heavy attack. Here is where I take a hit to save time. Amy will hit you with her hammer and that slows me down, so in a specific frame, I do my aim attack, so both me and Amy get hit and she dies.
2nd set involves me moving the characters where I want to hit them, I move too so I can hit them without any of my foes NOT getting knocked upwards. It's a few frames slower.
3rd set uses the same Knux strats and I do a Chaos Burst in midair, killing Amy first.
Last KO is interesting. Amy loves her special moves, so I forcefield her to make her Super Meter get filled. She throws a gift at me, but thanks to my own blocking pattern, I block said move automatically, so then I can perform a Chaos Magic on... Chaos... 1HKOing him in the process.

Final stage: Team Sonic (aka. the echidna is back)

Same as the first fight, I hit Knux first with my dash attack. Since Sonic is fast enough and loves his fists so much, he tries to hit me. I'll just block him and start spamming Chaos Magic. Thanks to my heavy attack being of wide range, I manage to kill all 3 simultaneously.
2nd set, like the solo Sonic fight, I air attack Knux and in a specific X position I do Chaos Burst.
3rd set is pretty much the same as the 1st fight's strats, only I do one extra Chaos Magic to manipulate the AI's spawning positon for the last KO.
Last KO is doing a Chaos Burst with Sonic. And with that and an extra 11th KO, I beat the Challenge!

Other comments

Known Improvements

Using SRAM and Emerl: Emerl at the end of the game, becomes the ultimate life form of the game, but it's pretty tedious getting there. Making a verification file will be extremely difficult and tedious, and the right skill set with all ultimate moves from the VR Training would be ridiculously hard.

Using a death glitch with SRAM and Knuckles: You can perform a glitch in the Story Mode's VR Training. Die in one of those fights and quit Story Mode, then go to challenge mode and select Knux for his really powerful Deep Impact move. KO someone with that move, and then make Knux die... you'll win the battle without even having 10 KOs! This breaks Challenge Mode and destroys Kumquat's records with Emerl!

However, it's only possible to do VERY far into the game, requiring dirty SRAM and no resets, because when you reset the game, the glitch cancels. That's a bummer.

Suggested Screenshot

a screenshot when i show my edginess and kill a lot of people... like the shadow videogame! heh...

Special Thanks

Kumquat: for his original Emerl TAS, and his research, specially RAM addresses! They were really helpful.

Rolanmen1: for making the thread and making the first TAS of this game.

Pokota: for his encode!

Paused, niamek, xy2_, BrunoVisnadi, scrimpeh, FerretWarlord and grassini for their interest in the game!